Id much rather watch RL that is patient and skilful with flashes of genius in amongst to break really tough organised defences. That is the NRL. SL is too often lob it around and hope for the best. I love SL but its nothing compared to the NRL.

Fair point about the polynesians don't forget RL is only played in a very small area of the UK as a whole and in that area it has to compete with two of the biggest sporting clubs in the world in Manchester Utd and Liverpool. It does produce enough young quality players the problem is progressing them to professional level - too many ex players rather than professional coaches at junior level.

I absolutely love the NRL, particularly how competitive it is compared to SL, although this can make for safety-first play. However, the sight of 70,000 empty seats at Homebush has to be a downer for players and spectators. What's it like to be at a game there, and how can it pay? I understand the stadium pays the clubs to host fixtures, but how do they justify it?

One AFL team in a city of over 4 million gets crowds of under 32,000.
The only team! No other competition form any other AFL teams and yet less than 1% of the population go to the Swans' games.
If you added up the crowd figures for the Sydney league teams in the NRL, according to your figures your looking at around 100,000 paying customers every week. 100,000 compared to 32,000, and you think the NRL should be worried about AFL?

People....$500,000,000 was spent to get Rugby League fans in Australia to stop going to games and to start watching them on TV instead. In fact, the reason for your little Super Man rip off logo is because some suits in Sydney wanted better TV ratings in NSW and QLD.

Now, that happened, Rugby League dominates TV ratings. Where other sports might have one Grand Final, Rugby League in Australia gets massive ratings from three Origin games and the Grand Final.

With that in mind, the NRL is still the biggest, most watched, most attended "Rugby" competition in the world today.

i was there when there were 6000 and it was awful.

with 20,000 in its not bad.

last year i was there for a game that had 38,000 and it was quite good.

the stadium gives anyone that plays there a guaranteed $100,000 per game but they keep the gates. if the crowd tops a certain figure the club then shares some of that with the stadium

so rain, hail or shine the club is guaranteed to make a certain amount of money, irrespective of the crowd.

the stadium justify the expense as otherwise it wouldnt be used and its members would have less games to go too. by being used so much the stadium makes more in advertising as its sponsors appear on TV.

by keeping the gate money its not as bad as it sounds

The NRL needs to get rid of the Roosters, tell the Tigers to find ONE home ground, get the Sharks up to Brisbane and crowds would get a good rise in Sydney.

i disagree. the sharks are the only real 'local' team in sydney, where pretty much all the local community support them. the roosters have been there for a 100 years, and while their supporters are fickle and selective in their support, they still have a massive following. you move these 2 teams and you lose hundreds of thousands of support for rugby league. you take away any sydney team and you lose hundreds of thousands of fans.

as for the tigers, the ground situation is not ideal, but it is needed to please all thei fans. they are a merger and balmain and campbelltown are nowhere near each other (which im sure you're aware of, just explaining it to those who arent familiar with sydney). having 3 games at leichhardt and campbelltown turn these games into events. especially in the case of leichhardt, the ground is absolutely chockers 3 times a year (i would like 4 or 5 games there). i think they should of stuck at anz for their 'super games' against other big sydney clubs. i dont know if these games will draw as much at the sfs.

Yeah, the Sharks are a local team, but thats part of the problem.

They have no way they can expand on their current base, which is already way too small.

Their crowds numbers have been terrible in the last few years, and their team has been playing well so that's not an excuse.

On top of that, they are broke and have been forever.


I dont WANT the Sharks to have to move, but honestly, they are treading water at Cronulla and if they moved to Brisbane tomorrow and played out of Suncorp, they'd be getting 25,000 on a bad day and would be one of the top clubs in the game.


As for the Roosters, I don't agree about their supporter base. Sure its all nice to talk about a 100 year old club, but they are ONLY running because of a few rich guys bankroll them. Once that money is gone they are so short of money its unbelievable.

They really do have no juniors, to the point where they wanted to scrap all their juniors sides and just have the NRL team, their reserve grade side (Run by Newtown) and their Toyota Cup side. The NRL said no so they had to keep on buying everyone else young players.

The Roosters are basically a shop front. It all looks great walking past, but there is nothing inside, its not a real club.

And their crowds are TERRIBLE. They play in a great stadium, all seater, 44,000 and its still good with 20,000 in it. But they get crowds of less than 8,000 on a regular basis.


As for the Tigers, they need to sort out where to play. I think in the long term and as the population spreads, Campbelltown is the place to end up playing out of.

Their problem is money.


Leichhardt Oval is an 1800's relic. It has no facilities, its rotten to get too, its too small. It needs at least $80 million spent on it, and thats not happening.

Campbelltown is basically one small stand and a hill. Its just part of a stadium, it needs tens of millions spend on it to get it anywhere near where it needs to be for the future.

None of that will happen because the NSW government is stone motherless broke because of its own incompetence, but on top of that, how can a club that has four home fields, including the $800 million dollar Olympic stadium honestly go cap in hand wanting more money for just 3-4 games a year?


Yeah, its nice to think of old times with the Sydney competition, but the game needs to move on or it will die. Millions go wasted every year because we done have a national competition. Thats what sponsors want, thats what TV companies want, and we cant give it to them.

At the same time Sydney teams are struggling in a diluted market that means they can market the game properly.

Queensland is dying for one or two more teams to add to the three they already have that are booming, even in bad seasons.

New Zealand needs another team while PNG has said they will basically fund their own side.


There has to be a breaking point somewhere and that is going to be Sydney clubs who just cant compete.

Even if you expanded the competition and left Sydney as is, Sydney clubs cant compete with the money being generated by other teams.

agree with much of what freaky says.

leichardt oval is nice but a team based in campbelltown is better for RL.

i dont like losing sydney clubs but cronulla and roosters would have the least impact unlike the more popular clubs

why saints merged and a s**t club like cronulla stayed on their own is beyond me.

cronulla are a waste of space